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I came across this application earlier on today, and thought some of you might perhaps like to try it, and who knows, maybe even find this useful. Since I'm currently experimenting with AntiX, this tutorial will show you how to install this into AntiX 16.1, using the default ROX-Filer/IceWM combination.

AntiX is based on Debian Jessie, so some of this stuff will apply to other Debian-based distros; the rest of it is specific to AntiX, but if you're good with this kind of thing, it won't take a lot of modifying.

1. First of all, it's a Java application. I know some of you will straight away cross this off your list due to that very reason, but for the rest of you, please bear with me.... We need to install Java to begin with, so open a terminal, and input the following (inserting your password where necessary):-

​sudo apt-get install default-jre

Let the system do its thing, and you'll end up with the Java Runtime Environment installed.

and download the application. You'll want the 'Desktop' version, not the 'Android' one for this tutorial, because the Android .apk won't work (unless you're running an Android emulator.....and that's a whole different ball-game entirely!) To make things easier, I saved this to my /home/Mike/Downloads directory.....saves having to change permissions.

3. Using File-Roller, which is built-in to AntiX, left click on the cruiser-desktop-1.2.18.zip file. File-Roller opens; highlight the file, then click on 'Extract'. You'll end up with the extracted cruiser directory alongside it. Personally, I've moved this to /home/Mike, and am running it from there.

4. At this point, it will run by going into the cruiser directory, opening a terminal with ROX (right-click, Window->Terminal here), and simply typing

java -jar cruiser.jar

.....and the application will start. However, I like to be a bit more professional than that, so I've created a shell-script for /usr/bin, and a desktop entry file for /usr/share/applications.

5. Open a terminal, do 'sudo geany' (this opens geany as root). The desktop entry file wants to look like this:-

That'll take care of the application's icon. Or, you can use any icon you like, really.....so long as the name in the desktop entry and in /usr/share/pixmaps match. PNG images work best for this kind of thing.

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Hey Mike! That looks interesting. I have been toying around with the idea of making a Raspberry Pi in car system (even though I have a full touch screen in my car - just no nav) with navigation. So this is intriguing. Have you tried it out at all? If so, does it seem to work well?

Yeah, it seems to work OK. Like I said, it's an 'alternative' to Google Maps; there isn't all the fancy StreetView and that kind of thing that Google gives you, but for a good, general-purpose global map, which goes down to quite fine detail, it's all right. It works on what OpenStreetMap themselves refer to as 'vector tiling'.....whatever that means.

Bear in mind that it's Java-based, though. The app itself isn't particularly large, but you've got to have Oracle's JRE or IcedTea installed for it to work.